As you age, your focus will begin to pivot towards retirement requirements. These tasks include finding a helpful and reliable nursing home for many people. Nursing homes are specifically designed to care for the elderly. As such, they require employees with a lot of understanding, patience, and a good work ethic just to operate.
Seeking to go above and beyond, some locations have begun integrating robotics to combat worker fatigue, loneliness, and many other issues. Here’s what you need to know.
There’s more than Industrial Uses for Robotics.
Most people envision large industrial complexes and manufacturing facilities when they discuss robotics. Today, robots can be found working in factories globally, helping to cut costs, improve precision, and enable more productivity. Their benefits and effects continue to be studied and documented.
Notably, another robotic revolution is occurring that is far less publicly discussed —robots in the healthcare sector. You may be surprised to learn that there are robots that assist in surgeries, help nurses care for patients, and monitor patients 24/7. Impressively, Robotics in the healthcare industry is on the rise.
Nursing Homes
Long-term Care facilities are an essential way for the elderly to gain around-the-clock medical care without burdening their family or paying for in-home care. These facilities have seen a stark increase in use over the last few decades, with the only decline occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to recent data, there are +15,000 nursing homes in the US alone. This number is set to increase alongside the growing number of elderly. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the US has experienced a 33% increase in the number of adults aged +60 years over the last five years. As such, a growing demand for improved LTC options.
Problems Today’s Nursing Homes Face
To improve their business model and care, nursing homes need to rectify several problems. For one, there is a severe shortage of workers at the moment. Nursing homes require a lot of staff to operate and provide special care to patients. Consequently, millions of people work in this sector.
This work is very demanding as it requires people to assist the elderly with tasks such as eating, exercising, bathing, toileting, and more. Healthcare workers have to lift heavy items and patients and conduct other activities that have been shown to cause wear and tear on the joints, especially the knees and back. Additionally, these positions are not high-paying, adding to the stress. All of these factors have created serious worker shortages in the industry.
Robotics in Nursing Homes are Expensive
Whenever you have high employee costs, the price of the service increases. As such, nursing home care can be very expensive, with the average cost sitting at $9,733 per month. Notably, many people turn to Medicaid to cover these costs. Around 63% of nursing facility residents use this service to cover their stay.
Robots Offer Solutions
Robots provide solutions to many of the most pressing issues faced by the healthcare sector. These helpful devices can perform a wide range of daily tasks that strain healthcare workers. Consequently, there is a big push to integrate more robotics in nursing homes as fast as possible. These systems can help reduce both employee and patient stress and much more.
Source – Robotics Guide
Robotic Research in the Long-Term Care Facilities
Most research conducted on robotics in the workspace focuses on the industrial sector. This data has helped manufacturers determine how to integrate these devices without causing worker stress or distrust. Notably, much less research has been conducted on their effects in the healthcare industry until now.
Robotics in Nursing Homes Study
A team of researchers from the University of Notre Dame recently published a paper that delves deep into the effects of robotics on employees, patients, and the business model of long-term care facilities. The study demonstrates the pros and cons of robotics integration, its effect on patients and employees, and how they will alter the business model in the future.
The study, Robots and Labor in Nursing Homes1, was published in Labour Economics. It details research conducted at Japanese nursing homes regarding the use of robots and their effects. The engineers selected Japan as the perfect country to conduct their study because of many factors. For one, it has an elderly population. Additionally, Japan has declining birth rates and high robot adoption.
Notably, Japanese nursing homes are among the most high-tech in the world. They lead the industry in terms of robotic integration, and their elderly population is accustomed to technology. As part of the study, they collected various data from nursing homes that used robots between 2020 and 2022.
The researchers conducted two separate surveys of the locations. The surveys had questions regarding the tasks robots performed, their interactions with patients and employees, how they affected the quality of care provided, and overall productivity.
Types of Robots Studied
The study breaks down robots into 3 main categories – transfer, mobility, and monitoring bots. Monitoring bots are the most commonly used, followed by transfer, and mobility bots. Notably, some of these robots were built to enhance and augment workers, while others are designed to replace them.
Monitoring Robots
Monitoring robots are the most available and widely used in the LTC sector. They provide real-time data on patients that can include vital information such as heart rate, video feeds, and more. These devices may integrate various sensors that ensure patients receive the care needed on time.
Monitoring robots include communication-based robots. These devices are set up to mitigate loneliness. Think of a robotic pet dog that allows a person with dementia to interact with something daily. These units come in many forms, and engineers continue to push the boundaries of ingenuity, creating more realistic and helpful options that share real-time data with healthcare providers.
Transfer Robots
The next type of robot you are likely to encounter in Japanese nursing homes is a transfer bot. This unit has a special layout designed to help care providers move patients around the facility. As such, they help patients avoid bed sores and other issues that plague healthcare facility patients today.
Healthcare workers must perform many physically demanding tasks, including lifting, moving, and rotating patients in beds, adding to their stress. These devices are designed to make these tasks less labor-intensive. Notably, transfer bots usually require an operator to be present. However, as AI improves, they may only require voice prompts shortly.
Mobility Robots
Mobility bots help patients move across the facility. These devices usually focus on helping patients get to, in, and out of bathtubs and other bathing facilities. They can be both fully automated or controlled by a patient or healthcare worker.
Robotics in Nursing Homes Canonical Models
The study uses Canonical models to identify and evaluate the human task versus robot-assisted or replaced options. It included questions regarding how the robot integration has progressed and how both patients and healthcare workers experienced the integration over the two-year research period.
Robot Heterogeneity
Researchers also delved into robot heterogeneity to better understand why certain robots are used for certain tasks, which machines were the easiest to integrate, whether full automation or partial human control was preferred, and in what scenarios. This revealed key details about robotic management in these facilities that could help shed light on future integrations.
Robotics in Nursing Homes Test
As part of the testing phase of the study, the team set off to identify what task care workers use robots to accomplish, before examining the relationship between the employees and their mechanical counterparts. They found some very interesting results.
Robotics in Nursing Homes Results
Significant data was produced, revealing that robots can help improve vital aspects of the LTC sector. The data showed that integrating devices to conduct certain tasks will improve employee morale, retention, care quality, and productivity.
The study revealed that nursing homes that used robotics had much less turnover compared to traditional options. The main reason robots helped alleviate employees was that they reduced physical and mental strain. Monitoring robots lowered the demand for constant checking, mobility robots helped to reduce physical stress and soreness, and transfer bots helped to improve overall care.
Specifically, the study found that more automation was a good thing for both employees and patients in most instances. The data showed that patients with the capability to operate robots found that these devices could provide more dignity versus relying on a person. Additionally, patients experienced fever bedsores, and pressure ulcers when provided with robotic solutions.
New Employees Ready to Use Robots
The data also suggest that employees with less experience tended to use robots more than those who were accustomed to traditional methods. This data revelas that nursing homes can expand their hiring using robots to reduce the requirements of the position.
Robotics in Nursing Homes – Not All Positive
The study did find some downsides to the use of robots in healthcare. For one, they noticed that there was an increased risk of falls for patients using mobility robots versus healthcare professionals. The increased fall rate comes from a variety of factors, including missed calculations, bad controlling, and nervousness.
Benefits of Robotics in Nursing Homes
This technology can bring many benefits to the healthcare market. For one, it can help lower the cost of LTC for residents. The more robots used, the lower the employee costs, which should directly translate to reduced costs for patients.
Increased Employment
Robotic integration will help to drive employment and retention to new heights in the coming years. These devices make the job easier and more effective. They enable healthcare workers to provide a higher quality of care by enabling them to focus on nontechnical aspects of the human experience,e such as empathy, dexterity, and emotional support.
Robotics in Nursing Homes Researchers
Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs conducted the study, which was led by associate professor of Technology, economics, and global affairs, Yong Suk Lee. He had assistance from Toshiaki Iizuka and Karen Eggleston from Stanford University. Now, the team will take this data and use it to help the industry better integrate this technology responsibly.
The robots in healthcare project received funding from various sources, including the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Japan Fund, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Keough School’s Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, and Kellogg Institute for International Studies.
Companies that Could Benefit from the Robots in Nursing Homes Study
There are multiple companies that have the products, services, and positioning to use the data from this report to improve their business models. These companies range from healthcare providers to advanced robotics software companies. Here’s one firm that could gain a lot from the integration.
Tenet Healthcare Corp (THC -1.44%) entered the market in 1969 with the goal of providing top-notch healthcare to the aging US market. The company offers a variety of services, including ambulatory, urgent, and acute care options. It is currently one of the most recognizable names in the sector.
Tenet Healthcare Corporation (THC -1.44%)
Tenet has operations around the US. Currently, the company hosts 65 hospitals and is responsible for another 450 healthcare facilities. Additionally, the firm employs +100,000 workers across the nation, making it a vital component of the healthcare industry.
Adding more robotics to their healthcare facility would be a major investment. However, it would pay off greatly over time as the company’s offering and pricing improved. These factors and many more make Tenet Healthcare a smart stock to monitor in 2025.
Robots in Nursing Homes – It Makes Sense
There are plenty of reasons why there should be a strong push towards integrating robots into nursing homes. As the world ages, demand for around-the-clock care will increase alongside a decrease in working-aged employees.
Only robotics will provide a solution that can enable the elderly to live comfortably without burdening younger generations. As such, you shouldn’t be surprised to see a robot appear when you ring the nurse buzzer in the future.
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Study Reference:
1. Lee, Y. S., Iizuka, T., & Eggleston, K. (2025). Robots and labor in nursing homes. Labour Economics, 92, 102666. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2024.102666
